{youtube}CoOEgDT-MgA{/youtube}
If Matt Nation could relive his youth again he would like to be as mature as young footballers
As anybody who has ever read about footballers letting off fireworks in their bathroom, visiting nightspots midweek or doing any number of things involving shopping trolleys and trousers round the ankles knows, it is down to their “lack of maturity”. Footballers, who are often “cocooned” in “bubbles”, will simply not grow up because the clubs will not let them.
After financial crises, the 2012 season could emerge as an unlikely success story for Peru’s Primera División, says Nick Dorrington
2011 was a terrible year for Peruvian football. The football federation’s flaccid attempts at regulating the financial difficulties suffered by the majority of first division clubs turned the national league into a farce. The death of Alianza Lima supporter Walter Oyarce, who was pushed off a stand by rival fans, highlighted the growing problem of football-related violence. Stricter enforcement was required if 2012 was to offer any improvement.
Football is popular in India but without a strong domestic competition fans will continue to watch the English game, writes Simon Creasey
It may play second fiddle to cricket as the national pastime, but football has a big following in India. In July 1997 a record 131,000 people crammed into the Salt Lake stadium in Calcutta to watch the KBL Federation Cup semi-final between bitter rivals East Bengal and Mohun Bagan. In the same decade attendances of up to 100,000 were recorded in Kerala and Bengal. Goa, Bangalore and Delhi also regularly enjoyed matchday attendances of between 25,000 and 35,000.
San Lorenzo fans are mobilising to ask questions of the dictatorship that turned their stadium into a supermarket, reports Joel Richards
Barely three hours after the Mothers of the Disappeared finished their march, San Lorenzo fans filled the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires. According to the organisers, there were 100,000 of them. Just like the Mothers, San Lorenzo were demanding justice for crimes committed during the 1976-83 dictatorship in Argentina.